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Went to the hospital in the middle of the storm. Electricity went off so too oxygen generator. Ambulance refused to come, so too private ambulance had to pay neighbor. It was exciting watching ER personal wrestling with wheel chair while rain and wind blowing sideways. Nursing most honorable profession.

I am seeking for the origins of the idea of deck of cards, more precisely, the terms so called – nine of hearts, king of hearts etc. I saw that in Fellowship of Friends, they use these terms a lot, but I do not seem to able to find the origins. Ouspensky mentioned in the little book on psychology on parts of centers but not these. Do you have any insights or ideas?

Yes, “The brightest light in 2000 years,” “The avatar of this age,” the only “conscious being” on planet Earth, is still alive and keeping the dream going for some 1500 followers, nearly all of whom choose to remain in a hypnotic sleep, because it really is quite a pleasant dream, despite the glaring contradictions between what Robert Burton says about himself, and his actions and behavior. The dream of being chosen, out of 7 billion people, to find a “conscious school;” the dream of 44+ angels guiding one’s “evolution;” the dream of going to “paradise” at the conclusion of one’s “ninth life.”

Burakcali; as near as I can tell, that was Mr. Burton’s application. The modern deck of cards sure looks to be sprung from the Tarot – which Ouspensky thought was based on Egyptian symbolism and carried up from North Africa by gypsies. Lewis Carroll strikes a kind of tangent chord with his Queen and King of Hearts characters.

robertschelly – I am aware of Lewis Carroll’s similarities, therefore I doubt it is his application only. As the body types knowledge is not their application only since it was Rodney Collin who brought up the idea by organizing different knowledge, probably that idea is originating from somewhere else.

Body type, center-of-gravity, chief feature and alchemy are mere curiosities when compared with self-remembering. That being said, those four ‘work ideas’ are a way of defining the human condition or psychology and, going back to the origins of man, have existed forever and get expressed in various forms throughout history. (Why, for instance, have pyramids come into expression in different peoples and civilizations that have not had contact with each other in place and time?) The inner world gives expression to outward manifestations. One thing I have learned, post-FoF, is that there are any number of ‘esoteric’ systems that can be used to understand the human condition. Some are purer than others. Typically, they are B Influence that can lead to individuals discovering/finding C Influence. There is no monopoly or possession of these ideas. They are tools to an awakening experience.

Thanks for your answers. I know about that book of Ouspensky, however I did not see any correlations with that nine of hearts or detailed card deck information. What do you do after FOF, Wouldnt You Like To Know?

After reading so much about it, I do not consider fof at all, but is there genuine groups or schools. I am only reading and trying to apply Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Rodney Collin. Do you know any “purer” sources or have any purer esoteric knowledge you would like to suggest?

The attempt to identify historical roots indicating the deck of cards is a model of psychic functioning and behavior is an interesting pastime. But the whole enterprise is constrained by the assumption of “esoteric authenticity.” The researcher assumes the model is accurate and legitimate, because s/he’s used it and has a body of observations encoded in the model’s language. The researcher may be unaware, however, that the model has itself shaped or even dictated what she or she has observed. (The huge archive of phrenological writing from the 19th century is full of examples of observations encoded in a language of specious assumptions and used to explain psychic function and behavior.)

The assumption that the deck of cards is “esoterically authentic” is a straitjacket. The researcher cannot question or critically evaluate the assumption that the model is accurate, profound, and anchored in the history of “esoteric” institutions. If the researcher discards the assumption that there’s some deep esoteric meaning in the model, the research becomes an exercise in antiquarianism. Make no mistake, I think it’s fine to ask whether there’s deep meaning, esoteric or otherwise, in the model (as opposed to assuming it’s there). But the researcher also has to be able, after evaluation, to answer the question “no.” There’s a stigma associated with reaching such a conclusion.

So instead the research goes on, with its outcome determined by the assumption of “esoteric authenticity.” When attention is narrowed by the search to identify predetermined conclusions, the searcher will find “clues” to support those conclusions.

What would it mean if you could pinpoint the source of the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran or a deck of cards? What was before that, and before that, and before that …?
“I don’t make the rules, I just write them down.”

Does anyone know who introduced Robert Burton to the notion of a deck of cards representing the “centers”? By 1974, the Fellowship had already institutionalized this “tool.” Was it something Burton carried over from Alex Horn’s group?

I abandoned the bodytype and the “center-of-gravity” deck of card classification after I left FOF. I felt they were or at least can be used as a sort of jargon.Just a labeling. Furthermore it becomes a straitjacket on your mind to think that you or someone else is a certain bodytype or centre of gravity.
It seems relatively easy to disprove the body type theory by observing oneself. Centers of gravity …mmm… a bit harder. it takes a while -a few years- but eventually one does stop thinking of oneself and everyone else through those filters, and also chief feature, another good one to throw out the window.
What a relief not to look and interact with the person in front of you as a person without those sort of mind filters in place.

I heard somewhere (probabaly here) that there is an influx of young people in FOF. Is this true? If true, I find it vaguely depressing. But young people are the most gullible/vunerable to these sort of groups so I suppose not surprsing.

On the topic of: body type, center-of-gravity, chief feature and alchemy: Post FoF, I still find them useful and good common points of reference, especially in communication with others that know about them – as are other ‘work’ terminologies. However, I have found that giving too much weight to them, in interpersonal interaction with people, has a tendency to separate people into preconceived notions of them (and yourself), and, thereby, separating people from each other, rather than bringing people into closer communion – if you will; separating instead of unifying peoples. (And, in our present times and conditions, we need more joining together rather than dividing people from each other.) I hope that makes sense.

This can also be said about the FoFism: ‘life people’ which, as far as I can tell, is not a Fourth Way term, but is unique to FoF. People in the work are not chosen, or special, nor superior. Everyone has the equal possibility of being or becoming conscious.

Thanks for that cogent assessment… pigeonholing people into classifications based on a notion of “applied mechanics” in itself creates a mechanical way of viewing and interacting… to use your word the idea itself generates “filters” which inhibit or prevents the possibility for more honest and less “calculating” human interactions.

Interesting. For me, without going onto very minor details (deck of card) it’s pretty obvious that center of gravity can’t be disputed. Some one predominantly centered in one of the four makes it pretty fucking obvious that it’s accurate. Alchemy…marginal, but there is also obvious clues when someone is inherently and obviously refined or inherently and obviously course. You call it something else, but it’s only a label used to define obvious human proclivities and traits. Chief feature (Gurdjieff’s statements). I don’t know about that except when I’m interrelating with someone it can be fairly obvious that they may view their entire life through a filter of vanity, or fear, or non-existence. But one can label those trait as they wish. I think Gurdjieff wasen’t espousing rules and “facts” as much as temporary maps to help one see themselves.

I don’t find it dehumanizing because, for me, it’s not a de facto rule. It is just a temporary study guide for one to see the world in one schema much like zen, tantra etc. it’s a map to be discarded when you arrive somewhere else.

I think it’s worthwhile to note how FOF cult beliefs and FOF cult indoctrination contribute to antisocial behaviors, such as lying, cheating, stealing, and substance abuse.

Firstly, by categorizing humans into groups: i. e. body type, center of gravity, and alchemy, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to resist assigning valuation to one group over another in such an authoritarian hierarchical context like the FOF with one self-proclaimed leader.

Also, the working ego or personality is weakened and compromised in social situations when one attempts to act in a manner outside of one’s character for the sake of demostrating feigned enlightenment. This disempowers and destabilizes the neophyte, setting the stage for exploitation by the cult leader and other entrenched followers.

Secondly, the effort to interrupt the naturally occurring trance state and favoring of a more hyper-vigilant one through use of doomsday predictions and thought blocking techniques like chanting the 30 canine commands is stressful and anxiety provoking.

Since trance states are a necessary component of psychic equilibrium; without them the follower is subject to underlying feelings of dependence, anxiety, and paranoia. In order to compensate for these uncomfortable feelings, the follower must assume the shared delusion (drink the Kool-Aid) that through cult membership they are more ‘conscious’ than others.

Thirdly, and IMO the most damaging and criminal is the separating of humanity into entitled cult members versus dead, undeserving ‘life people’, and placing the follower’s and cult leader’s needs above all others…thereby tacitly justifying the years of burton’s and the FOF’s sociopathic behavior these pages document.

“George Birimisa (born 21 February 1924 – died 10 May 2012) was an American playwright, actor, and director who contributed to the explosion of gay theater in the mid-1960s during the early years of Off-Off-Broadway. His works feature sexually explicit, emotionally charged depictions of working-class homosexual men, often closeted, in the years before the Stonewall riots (1969) triggered a national and international gay rights movement. Contemporary Authors stated that “Birmisa’s plays feature themes of human isolation, frustrated idealism, and rage against needless suffering, usually centered around homosexual characters.“ According to critic and playwright Michael Smith, Birimisa’s writing “links the pain of human isolation to economic and social roots.” Birimisa remained an active playwright, author, editor, and teacher until the end of his life.”

George Birimisa and other actors from Chicago traveled to Mexico with Alex Horn around 1954/55. This was the core of the group that would soon thereafter become the Compass Players, later Second City.

By all accounts, Horn was anti-homosexual. (Was that a result of spending several months with Birimisa in Mexico?) According to Thomas Farber (who was in Horn’s group about the same time as Robert Burton) in “Tales for the Son of my Unborn Child,” Horn was especially physically violent towards gay men in his group, even forcing 2 lovers to fight seriously with each other. And, of course, it is reported that Burton was expelled from Horn’s group because he (Burton) would not stop hitting on the other (probably young) men.

Yes, fire was close, but Oregon House (and FoF) was spared. If you can picture the area, it started above the Ace hardware store near the intersection of Marysville Road and Willow Glen, then spread south and west. OH is to the southeast of Ace. Loma Rica was hard hit. 100% containment is expected Oct 17.

“…such a secret society rarely allows those who are being wooed to join to see its shadier sides from the outset…Once they make a commitment to a group, they are less quick to criticize it, especially as still further mysteries are held before them as inducements to joining. And gradually, when novices are deemed ready to absorb more information without criticism and in complete secrecy, they are exposed to tasks and methods they would earlier have questioned.”

From “Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation” by Sissela Bok. From the chapter, “Secret Societies / Groups Sworn to Secrecy,” pp 49-50.

This book followed her earlier book called “Lying,” which I read after leaving the FoF to help me understand the FoF’s unrelenting mind-f-k.

Fair warning! This is one of Ames’ long and probably boring essays, so feel free to skip down to the bottom and save yourself some time…
Not only that, almost all of it has been said before in this blog in a number of places, one way or another (as far as my understanding goes). Of course, it is all personal opinion, and at best should be taken with a truckload of salt. And lastly, readers should bear in mind that my direct experience with the Fellowship of Friends ended twenty–two years ago; everything I’ve learned about the organization after that is hearsay, though I’ve tried to substantiate my strongest claims through more than one source.

Same with Asaf Braverman’s BePeriod organization. I’ve never met him, his twenty years (!) with Burton in the Fellowship were all after my time, I’ve never joined his group, it’s all hearsay (second or even third–hand experience). So, I grant that I may be wrong about anything—or everything. Maybe there really are 45 angels helping Burton run things, maybe the Absolute has visited him three times to lend personal support and approval, maybe Braverman really is an enlightened altruist trying to uplift humanity, continuing the noble lineage of ‘schools’ from 150 centuries ago. And maybe anyone who writes a check to Burton really does automatically becomes ‘conscious’. I invite readers to collect lots of data from all sides, and take the time to think things out for themselves, and take responsibility for any decisions they do or do not make!

When I began posting here ten years ago, I decided I would try to avoid touching on ‘spiritual’ subjects per se, and concentrate on the more operational side of the Grand Scam. I simply felt unqualified to interpret what others said they had learned—or not; I have enough trouble trying to sort things out in my internal world, and words so often fail. So I’ve tackled subjects like the huge inequality of power between the Great Fraud and the lowly aspirants seeking answers, that kind of thing. Anyway, now I have entered the last phase of my life, I think I can start summarizing some of the things I believe I have learned in some of these other areas. Again, all just my opinion, of course! And please forgive anything that sounds preachy or ‘teachy’!

As you would expect an organization that uses the Fourth Way as bait to attract followers, The Fellowship of Friends claimed, at least for the first thirty years or so, that Self-remembering is central to its philosophy and the main tool followers should use to achieve ‘living presence’. Likewise, it would seem that Asaf Braverman’s teaching follows in the same vein. This would make sense since Asaf Braverman of Beperiod.com openly states Robert Earl Burton is, or was, his teacher, and he spent twenty years in the Fellowship of Friends at the feet of and in the bed of his master. Not only that, Braverman started Beperiod.com in 2012, five years before his exit in 2017 with the full knowledge and likely active support by some of the leading luminaries of the Fellowship of Friends. If there is any divergence in his philosophy and that of Burton, he has yet to state such in clear, unequivocal terms on the publicly accessible parts of the Beperiod website. It seems a fair assumption that the ‘esoteric’ part of Beperiod.com is pretty much the same as that of the Fellowship of Friends. Hence this is my assessment of what BOTH organizations pass off as ‘self–remembering’.

So I’ll just jump right in, starting with the subject of ‘self–remembering’ as I understood the indoctrination during my stay in the Fellowship of Friends and as I understand it (purely as a remote observer) in Asaf Braverman’s “Ark in Time” and BePeriod series of assertions. Right now, I’m not going to presume to tell readers what self-remembering is, but rather tackle the subject from the other end, start off by exploring what (IMHO) it isn’t.

• What Self–Remembering is ‘Not’ I posit that both Robert Earl Burton and Asaf Braverman have no idea what ‘self–remembering’ is, and no idea that what they teach instead is a truly dangerous travesty.
I know that I will not sway any long–time members (some have been immersed in Burton’s fantasy for over forty years, and have an investment they cannot and will not easily give up), but maybe I can persuade some of those potential recruits who looking into these organizations to think hard about what they want and what they could lose by joining up with these charlatans.
What do the likes of Burton and Braverman in fact actually teach? It is what I have come to call, “Hyper-vigilant awareness”. And, they have gone completely ‘up the creek without a paddle’ with the “Battle with the Lower Self”. Over the decades, their methods have devolved from what I initially understood to be necessary neutral observations of What Is, without filters or expectations, to actively calling for an impossible–to–win internal war.

At the time I joined the FoF in 1978, I was presented with an interesting conundrum. A major principle of the Fourth Way is that man is ‘asleep’, and thus cannot ‘do’, that one has to to awaken somewhat to be able to ‘do’. Yet we ‘asleep students’ were from the beginning required to start ‘doing’, that is, start remembering ourselves. But over the decades, this ‘teaching’ has dramatically changed. From an admittedly entirely theoretical awareness of, though never acceptance of, ‘What Is’, it has morphed to a mental battle, pure mind activity and thus inevitably authoritarian and dualistic. To do that, both Burton and Braverman have constructed an intellectual pretzel, twisting both common sense and logic to support an ideology, not a living, breathing and useful internal and external situational awareness that might be the herald of something greater.

…I’m going to suppose that there are (at least) two general levels of ‘self–remembering’. I have to do this because this is what I have observed in myself. The first level is that gathering the information, provided by one’s senses and internal awareness, at that particular moment. Here I am, the observer, aware of the process, looking at this scene, this is my experience. Coupled with an attempt at detachment, to make impartial observations, without judgement. In summary, I am an active component in the effort to expand my awareness. Perhaps adding external and internal observations like, what is my posture, what am I smelling, where are my hands and feet, what is my facial expression, what am I wasting energy on, etc. This is as far as it ever went within the Fellowship of Friends. When I asked ‘older students’ the question, “What else?”, Or “How does one deepen this?”, I was always referred back to the ‘divided attention’ analogy. Over the years, it became obvious that no–one knew more than I did, or at least anything practical they were willing to share. So, for myself, I tried adding the attitude of gratitude in those moments, for blessing the circumstances—if not a discrete ‘old guy in the sky’ architect—that allowed me to be to some degree here and experiencing my wonderful life. I got this idea from Gurdjieff. Anyone who has been in the Fellowship during the first twenty years of its existence will no doubt remember that Burton proudly and frequently claimed he had had no need to study Gurdjieff and had never even read any of his books. WTF? Why was this not a bright red flag for me?

What of that I call the second kind of self–remembering? There, in my personal experience, I as an observer am completely passive. Passive but receptive. This is way beyond mere detachment. Something else is acting through me; I am being ‘self–remembered’. This, IMHO, is a much higher level, a ‘higher frequency’ in the jargon of my flower–child youth. And it seems to me to be complete in itself. No need to gather my attentions and inputs from the senses, no need to try to expand anything. No need to even make the effort to incorporate gratitude or awe, those come with the territory. And the experience is absolutely out of my hands, there is nothing I can do to bring it on, nothing I can do to extend it, nothing I can do but be aware and grateful when it occurs. The only contribution I can make is to allow it, to not get in the way. The quality, effortlessness and essential simplicity of this second kind is of a completely different order than the first. It is this second kind that I had hoped to experience more of when I joined the Fellowship. I did, from time to time, hear mention of this second kind while I was a member (and in this blog), but the main thrust was to increase efforts to achieve the first kind, by any and all means. In fact, I was taught that the ends justified the means, and the means came to entail more and more extreme and bizarre mental efforts, as well as incurring more and more moral hazard. It is so ironic that these efforts increase fragmentation, that they are in total opposition to re–cognizing, re–membering the whole, bring every part of the self together to the moment so as to experience it fully.

One essential point here. The first type requires efforts, is aided by the company of other seekers (for inspiration, reminders, sharing of problems and successes), and must be modeled by ‘someone who has (purportedly) escaped’. So, it requires structure and organization for consistent results, and a faith that the person claiming he/she has ‘escaped’ has done so. The second type requires no particular efforts, no organization, no intermediary. Thus is obviously of no use to those interested in power or self–aggrandizement, or for those who wish to abdicate their own power, and so it is for all practical purposes, unstudied and unmentioned and unwanted, unwelcome even as a possibility. When I ventured to talk about this second type within the Fellowship of Friends, I was told that I was ‘in imagination’ and making ‘wrong efforts’!
Over time, I came to realize that this is a classic example of groupthink. I would recommend decoupling from any group, let alone ones as risky as the FoF or offshoots like BePeriod.com, because of the danger of groupthink. Every group quickly develops its special forms of thought, based on the commonality that brought a bunch of individuals together in the first place. Those forms inevitably change to accommodate both the needs of the group and the needs of the leaders. To some extent, this is legitimate; times change, and if the thought structures of the group do not change to suit, then they become dogma and ideology. But those healthy and practical changes are all too often subsumed to the weaknesses, not the strengths, of the leaders and followers. One sign of this possibility is the openness of the group to external influences. If the group becomes withdrawn and isolated from the rest of society, then the pathologies within the group can flourish. If healthy and healing energies can be exchanged with the rest of the world, and no-one is afraid of the truth, then the group may thrive. Unfortunately, closed groups are the norm, because most ‘spiritual’ groups are formed to shield the participants from realities, internal and external, not for mutual aid in exploring things as they actually are, with no holds barred.

• Mistaking Mental Activity for Self–Remembering Lists of ‘things to do’, such as ‘The Sequence’, or even lists of ‘reminders’ (such as Asaf Braverman’s ‘work aphorisms’) are obvious indications that active mental activity is incorporated in the effort to ‘be present’ or ‘self–remember’. If there are indeed at least two levels of ‘self–remembering’ as I have posited, such lists might only be temporarily useful for the first level, the idea of enhancing situational awareness by extending the reach of the senses. Even that has dangers, it is too easy to memorize and use the list by rote, or to start relying on it alone instead of experiencing the reach on its own terms. At best, this leads one to a state of hyper-vigilance, an intense internal and situational awareness that one can learn to reach with a lot of discipline and practice. From what I can gather, Orage’s interests lay in this direction (mine too, for a while), and this misunderstanding (and his teaching of this misunderstanding) is why Gurdjieff ditched him. But this error is fairly benign compared to the dead end of “The Sequence”, as promulgated by the Fellowship of Friends and Asaf Braverman, which leads inevitably and rather quickly, to pure mind activity. Consider the context. Followers are simultaneously being indoctrinated with a steady diet of numerology and symbology based on ‘keys’ and the singular interpretations of mostly visual phenomena. How can all these interpretations be anything but mind activity, and a therefore a veil across the actual experience? How can it be any other way? Add this to the fact that this catalog of interpretations is closely coupled to “The Thirty Work ‘I’s”, and it is almost impossible to avoid the actual experience being drowned in a sea of mental activity. The final straw is that any efforts to decouple are themselves more mental activity, of the “Don’t think of the elephant in the room” type. That is, to try to clear one’s mentation based on lists and concurrent mental activities, one has to include in one’s awareness the lack, acknowledge the existence of one’s faulty thinking and undisciplined mentation and the associated impediments to actually being in the moment! This is an impossible task, and at best leads to the two directions of energy cancelling each other out. At worst, it can lead to a mental breakdown.

• The Dangers of False Ideas about Self–Remembering The next important aspect I’d like to address is the shattering of self–confidence, which leads to reliance on external sources of knowledge and authority, in particular the God–Emperor of Oregon House, Robert Earl Burton, or his recently–departed Great Hope, Asaf Braverman, and those followers to whom either of them temporarily lend authority. If one keeps losing the impossible–to–win war, then there is no doubt that one is going to lose any confidence one once had in one’s powers.
What is self–confidence? There are many levels, but in my opinion the bedrock of true self–confidence is based on self–knowledge. And this means exploration and getting to know every aspect of this human experience that you, as a human being are living, pleasant and unpleasant, avoiding nothing. That is mighty hard to do, because it means recognizing and facing and acknowledging the dark side and the so–called ‘negative’ sides, something that both we as a society and we as ‘spiritual’ individuals are conditioned to bypass or ignore. This is doubly, triply so within the Fellowship of Friends and its offshoots like BePeriod, and most authoritarian ‘spiritual’ disciplines. Anytime one hears mention of ‘lower self’ or ‘negative emotions’, it is a signal that we are in that territory and are about to employ mechanisms that encourage division and avoidance. The War against the Lower Self is a central concept in these organizations. So is the Non–expression of Negative Emotions, which quickly transitions to the suppression of negative emotions. Together they mean that huge swaths of human experience, of personal exploration of the very essence of human–ness and the point of this entire adventure are off–limits. And all that is offered to replace this vacuum is a whole bunch of received wisdom from some authority—a poor substitute for actual experiential knowledge. This reliance on others to fill the void is spiritual weakness, not strength. And if it goes on for very long, it is crippling, not empowering. I mean this literally; to the degree you give up the power of self–exploration to others, to the same degree you have disempowered yourself (and this is true of any of your powers). Certainly it is much easier to have others who claim authority and special knowledge to provide the answers. Accepting their explanations and their interpretations is so much easier than to go digging for them yourself, isn’t it? And it doesn’t take long to become accustomed to this helplessness that you voluntarily assumed. Soon it becomes a habit, then an addiction. And this ends with you having given up your main responsibilities and duty to yourself—and others. You continually fail, so who are you to ask questions of those in authority? And you, as a low unworthy worm in the scheme of things, will never need or seek to individuate or graduate.

As in any war, the War against the Lower Self leads to a great deal of stress. Human physiology is equipped to deal with a certain amount of stress, but only intermittently. We are well able to deal with fight or flight decisions over a short time, in an emergency, but are not adapted to deal with continuous stress. The low–grade but endless, continual ‘looking over your shoulder’ stress (C-Influence, fellow followers on the lookout), and the never–ending background guilt that one’s efforts will always fall short (after all, if you are not observing yourself, dividing attention, situationally aware 100% of the time, piling up victor after victory against the ‘lower self’, then you are falling short, aren’t you?)
There is the stress of constant ‘alarm clocks’ going off (whether self–set or via group exercises and expectations, ‘photographs’ by your peers and those in authority). There are reminders ever at hand (numerology—almost every number, multiple or combination has a meaning that you must struggle to interpret and apply ‘right now’); symbology (almost everything that passes in front of your eyes has a hidden pattern and hence esoteric meaning that you also must struggle to interpret and apply ‘right now’). And you may have missed that all–important sign that might have made all the difference and saved you a lifetime or two on the weary treadmill! This all contributes to the burden, not to mention diminution of self–confidence, and this doesn’t turn out too well for some; especially those already brought up on plenty of guilt and original sin, such as Catholics and Southern Baptists (just random examples among many!) And this is supposedly going to continue for many lifetimes, if you fall for the jive.

The financial demands of the Fellowship adds even more stress; one has to dig deeper and deeper into one’s wallet as one becomes more committed to the fantasy, to maintain the insatiable Robert Burton in the lifestyle he has become accustomed to. The result of all this stress inevitably leads to mental and physical illness. Within the body, the immune system becomes seriously weakened and starts to lose vitality. Mentally, life becomes increasingly joyless and even hopeless. I became deeply suspicious of my so–called ‘friends’ when I realized that any confidence could be and was betrayed (all for my own good, of course), there was no privacy, any other follower could enquire into my life and report their findings to higher authority. And even if one were were to satisfy the temporal organization, there were still those all–powerful and all–seeing angels to contend with, if one had been persuaded of their existence. One is told that they are monitoring you night and day, every thought and every effort (and lack of effort) is an open book to them, and that they alter circumstances especially to provide you with ‘friction to separate from’ and lessons to learn.

• Reasons Why Burton’s and Braverman’s Teachings Lead Away from Self–Remembering It is so easy to slip from, “The many ‘I’s show that we are not unified”, to “We are not unified”, that is, the whole body/spirit entity is not unified, but composed of separate parts. Based on arbitrary labels that are supposed to be temporary signposts to raise awareness, the FoF philosophers (if you can call them that) have managed to use the mind to permanently divide the unified whole into separate factions which they label and then set to war against each other. This is utter nonsense, and dangerous nonsense, as described above. The labels were supposed to be useful tools that one used for a short while to help one ‘get the flavor’ of a suggested line of observations, and certainly to be abandoned well before the mind took them to be more real than the objects of study themselves. Surely anyone who is trying to become more ‘self–aware’ quickly realizes how easy it is to look at an apple and completely miss the experience of that particular apple at that particular time, and instead substitute the label, “apple”, based on previous experiences melded together. We do that, mechanically substituting labels for the present unique phenomenon, all the time. Does the FoF/Braverman philosophy warn against this, guard against this? No. Yet, isn’t that the objective, to experience what is happening now, preferably without the prevailing cultural filters and expectations?
Asaf Braverman, on his Beperiod site, actually encourages labeling thoughts, as a prelude to ‘gaining control’ over them. After twenty years of internalizing these methods at the feet of his teacher, Robert Burton, he literally encourages followers to label them—as the first step to suppressing them. And quickly following the labelling comes the time when the preconception substitutes for the actual experience. I need hardly point out this is just another mental activity that comes between any follower and the actual experience of the here and now in its entirety; just like ‘The Sequence’, which Asaf Braverman co–invented a dozen years ago with his mentor, Robert Earl Burton. And this whole ‘teaching’ is about control (attempting to impose order), which is another illusion and the antithesis of self–remembering as I understand it, of ‘bringing all the parts together’.

Mme Ouspensky said it was just grace…
An analogy: we can make efforts to set up a nice dinner, rather than gorge, but the food itself is a gift.

Well, it has taken quite a long time to get not very far, so I’ll make one last point for anyone who has read thus far: it may be very difficult to ‘get at the truth’ of certain claims, but one sure way (though it might take a fair chunk of time passing) is to look at the results. Thus, I can look at the results of my own exposure over sixteen years to the ‘teachings’ of Robert Earl Burton, the Gargantuan Golem of Greatness. And I can look at four and a half decades of Burton’s ‘teaching’ and judge the results accessible to me and reported by hundreds and acted on by over fifteen thousand others who came, saw and left. I don’t have enough time, let alone any inclination, to subject myself to Asaf Braverman’s ‘teachings’ for a further sixteen years to make a comparison, and I think most sane people would agree, what would be the point? He studied under Burton for 20 years, and the very strong likelihood is that what he is offering is more of the same.
The fact is, the average long–term follower of Burton is not directly persuadable by outside influences. They will tell you that they are perfectly happy with the results of Burton’s teaching, that they are living rich, fulfilled lives, and they are ‘on the path to immortality’. Outside observers may see a harried, insular, closed–minded, often physically and mentally unwell population, but why would Burton’s followers care about those perceptions?

And so I came to see that Burton’s actions and behavior never matched his words, none of his claims panned out, he knew nothing and cared nothing about conscience, did not and could not know anything about the consciousness of others, and is very far from having even risen to the level of an ordinary, decent human being himself, let alone actively enabled anyone else to do so.
So, my results were that I was under constant stress, my mental and physical health suffered, I became more constrained in my thinking and behavior, I became less joyful and more closed off from the rest of humanity. I was dying inside. And I’m warning seekers that the same may happen to you.

I am more inclined to believe that Horn acquired his prejudices and his cruelty and brutality in childhood, given that he grew up in an orphanage. It has always struck me as weird that in February 1935 he was living with his parents in a flat in Chicago (according to a story which appeared in the Chicago Tribune), and in April 1940 he was an inmate of an orphanage (according to Census records). Can you imagine the trauma he must have experienced with such an upheaval?

Jomo, I’ll try to find my source (which itself certainly wasn’t direct knowledge, AFAIK), but I distinctly recall reading that Horn’s family house burnt down when he was 11, and then he ended up in the orphanage. One comment was, he may have set the fire himself.

My decades of association with Fellowship of Friends (FoF), Burton (REB), directly, and Alex Horn, by lineage extension, left me with the distinct impression that these people are abused and are abusers; as it were like an ‘iron fist in a velvet glove.’ You can debate the circumstances, but the Hydrogens, to use that Fourth Way terminology, reveal the truth behind the façade.

One significant thing that can happen to people with this type experience is that they develop a negative oxytocin response mechanism that can lead to sociopathology, or psychopathology, and/or, definitely NO CONSCIENCE. And, this is palpable, if you become aware of the energy (hydrogen) of this manifesting. Like some people can become sensitized to bullshit and have a good internal bullshit meter, so a person can develop a sensitivity for an absence of conscience and negative oxytocin response mechanism. People who are not properly nurtured in their formative years – like orphans and the abused, for example: Romanians, who lived in a radically altered society under Nicolae Ceaușescu (any wonder that Romanian FoF members had such an affinity for REB and the power structure of FoF? Hmmm, Dorian?)

“Human studies likewise confirm the notion that early experiences, possibly mediated by oxytocin, are related to later social behaviors, finds a study reported in the Nov. 22, 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 102, No. 47, pages 16,907-16,908). There, University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student Alison Wismer Fries and colleagues compared urine levels of oxytocin and a related hormone, vasopressin, in two sets of children – one raised from birth with their biological parents and one adopted after living in orphanages in Russia and Romania – following contact with their mothers. The levels of oxytocin rose in the biological children but remained the same in the adopted children, they found. These findings suggest there may be biological underpinnings for the observation that some adopted children, in particular those from deprived circumstances, have difficulty forming secure relationships, despite living in loving homes, the team notes.”

Cook County vital records show that Maurice C. Horn married Laura De Lallo on January 11, 1939. (I consider it likely that Laura De Lallo is a different person than the “Mrs. Maurice C. Horn” mentioned in the article of February 9, 1935. I could obtain Alex’s birth certificate for fifteen dollars, which would indicate the name of his mother, but I don’t feel like spending the money.)

Cook County vital records indicate that Maurice C. Horn died on November 29, 1939.

1940 Census records show Alexander as an inmate of the Marks Nathan Home for Jewish Orphans as of April 1, 1940.

So for the child Alex, there’s the disruption of his parents’ marriage, by death or divorce, either one of them traumatic. Then there is the apparent re-marriage of his father, followed by the death of his father in the same year. Then he’s put in the Marks Nathan orphanage. (All before his tenth birthday.) Can you imagine?!

A book by Daniel Friedman, titled The King of Chicago: Memories of my Father, about his father who grew up in that orphanage, describes it as a “black hole on the West Side of Chicago,” and reports that his father described his upbringing there, some years before Alex was placed there, as “traumatic.”

I think this information goes a long way towards contextualizing this guy. It’s hard to think of him without thinking of the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist.

Given the current state of affairs in America, I have great empathy for the FOF Russians who fled their mother country with fake promises of paradise, but then have to take it up the ass by daddy burton, like the rest of us by trump.

I welcome the recent public revelations of sexual harassment, abuse and rape by the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey: men who use their positions of power to exploit others.

It was not covered much in the media frenzy afterwards, but as you read through the article, especially towards the end, it brings to light that most compromised group of people- the enablers, the honeypots, the ones who made the phone-calls, cleared the schedules, booked the rooms, arranged the ride. The chief abuser themselves may be somewhat beyond hope- decades of acting this way has hardened the die, but the enablers, it seems they knew that what was happening was really not correct.

I wonder about FOF really. There were many older students I knew who were sensible people, idealistic yes. What are they doing?

51. Nevasayneva
The parallels in the FoF are directors of centers who, knowingly, send young men to RB’s harem; women (e.g. R*w*na T*yl*r) who first have sex with these men to try them out; current and former members of the Board (Eth*n H*rr*s, G*r*rd H*v*n, W*yne M*tt, etc.) who know everything and keep silent; higher-ups within the Galleria structure (e.g. D*r*an M*tai, Gr*yl*n, various newer Russian men) who groom the men for their first encounter, dispense the drugs and porn flicks, and arrange the nightly, sometimes highly complex, orgies; ex-harem and ex-FoF members (e.g. As*f) who could share so much, but don’t; other members (e.g. Fr*nc*s Th*mps*n) who would take the boys to their HIV exam; and last, but not least, L*nd* K*pl*n, who has been covering up for her “daddy” for some 47 years.

53. Arthur. Yes, G*r*rd and several others seem to get a certain glee from telling people they are now exiled. A sick addiction to power, miniscule though it is. But I’m with you: nothing but gratitude for being away from the collective imagination about Burton and themselves.

The New Yorker mag article, above, description of Harvey W. reads so uncannily similar to the Robert Earl Burton behaviour, flaming queen (as in flaming negative half of queen of hearts – not gay queen), that it is almost unbelievable. The circumstances and genders being different yet that queen of hearts energy is so unmistakable. But, that is how that card acts.

Examples:

“When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely ‘Who is this?’ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

‘Idiot!’ said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, ‘What’s your name, child?’

‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, ‘Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’

‘And who are these?’ said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.

‘How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own courage. ‘It’s no business of mine.’

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head! Off —’”

And:

“‘Collar that Dormouse,’ the Queen shrieked out. ‘Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!'”

Supposedly, Robert Earl Burton is a “Conscious Being,” i.e. according to him and his most ardent followers.

Supposedly, Burton’s “higher centers” fused and crystallized on March 19, 1976, resulting in an inner core of Burton’s being that is permanently conscious, operating with finer hydrogens, and at a faster speed, than any of the other functions of the physical body, including all intellectual and emotional functions.

Supposedly, this untra-fast, super-aware, inner being is also faster than any reactions to internal or external stimuli, including all so-called buffers, negative expressions, and numerous other “human” expressions.

Supposedly, if one is centered in this conscious inner core, there is nothing that can’t be almost immediately accepted and transformed.

Supposedly, Burton’s conscious inner core has been growing stronger and even more permanent for nearly 42 years.

So, given the above, how is it that Burton continues to have out-of-control, childish, even violent, reactions when he doesn’t get his way, when he losses power over someone or a situation? The most obvious example is when a member leaves him, especially telling him that his “teaching” has become irrelevant. “Hell hath no fury… “

Another recent example was his personal chef at the Galleria who quit to go work in “life.” Poor Burton: He didn’t handle that one very well at all, and curiously made sure that everyone knew how upset he was. Or when one of the big gatherings (aka, “Journey Forth”) does not bring in as much money as expected. Or a fund-raising dinner is not very well attended. Or it’s raining. (He hates it when the sun is not out, or it’s too cold.)

In science, history, etc., when facts don’t support a theory, maybe it’s time to alter the theory.

Question: Did Robert Burton actually fake his “crystallization” back in 1976?

Russia Today would probably be very, very interested to hear about how well Russians are blissfully living who have recently “immigrated” to Northern California to be in a cult run by a homosexual man who claims to be a 2,000 year old goddess trapped in a man’s body.

I’m sure their family and friends back home would like to know, and certainly the FOF won’t mind…the media exposure might help with their recruiting efforts.

59. WhaleRider
It would be most effective if a Russian ex-member (or current member) decided to tell their story to RT. I know there are many Russian men (and women, too) who know “everything,” follow this website, and (putting it mildly) have no love for the psycho-manipulator, Robert Earl Burton.

The Russian community is the tightest of all the Fellowship nationalities. Ex-members stay connected with current members. They all know the intimate details of life in the Galleria, the visa scams, the arranged/fake marriages, the false image (i.e. the “conscious being” fraud) presented to the rest of the flock. No group is as well-informed as the Russians.

A true story about Sasha, he of the Burton-matching flowered pajama-suit and, currently, one of only a very few these days with direct access to Burton: He ran into some Russian ex-members at a Starbucks in town. Because of the Russian connection, he revealed to them the extent to which he is increasingly able to make spending and other decisions, while encouraging these ex-members to rejoin and reap the benefits of Sasha’s influence. The loyalty to his tribe actually trumped his supposed loyalty to Burton. Or maybe Sasha really is as naïve as many people say.

“I hear almost nothing but complaining about Burton these days, and not just since the congestive heart failure incident a few months ago. His “teaching” is meaningless. 30 minutes of a meeting or dinner is spent talking about the latest antique purchases. He has been practically barricading himself in the Galleria. All access to him has to go through “Sasha,” his long-term boyfriend from Russia and one of the heirs-apparent to the throne. Increasingly people attend no events with Burton at all.

And yet, the one thread people still hang onto is that Burton is a “conscious being.” No matter how close to the exit door, even with a foot already out, virtually every current member still believes this most fundamental lie: not so much whether Burton is enlightened or not, or has had certain life-changing experiences, but that he is the only one; that no one else on the entire planet, whether one of his “students” or any of the millions of spiritually-minded people throughout the world, can approach his level of “consciousness.” This is what everyone in the Fellowship continues to believe, if nothing else, somehow buffering the obvious contradictions, clinging desperately to their “specialness,” terrified of life without Burton’s guidance.”

Hello, now and then I come here to read a bit. Many years ago in pre-internet age I joined ‘the school’ in a European city after finding a bookmark in ‘In Search for the Miraculous’ (not cheap print, that helped :-). I was young, confused and looking for answers. I only stayed for half a year or so. I was just reading some dialogues from february this year (page 158) and thought about a few small alarmbells I experienced in the beginning after I had entered the school. I left for another reason but afterwards I can recall these. The first one : there appeared to be a teacher, in school magazines referred to as ‘the Teacher’. I noticed the capital. I did not pay much attention to it, it was a vague figure on another continent and I was overwhelmed by all this information and new people here. Then there was something I read in one of those magazines, about losing the possibility of becoming conscious when you lose the school (when you leave the school). I had seen movies about cults when I was a teenager and knew this was a typical threat that should warn you. But this was only one of two times the word ‘cult’ came to my mind. The other one was when I had decided to leave and a long-time member asked me if I thought the school was a cult. I was surprised because that was not the reason, afterwards I thought maybe this member projected his own doubt. The last alarmbell was a moment in a room full of members and visiting foreign members, I saw a member who had just came back from the US, I heard them talking about this teacher and he looked high with glowing eyes and a broad smile. I wasn’t in the school to worship someone but to work on myself, so this looked odd to me.
I left because I couldn’t make the decison to totally submerge myself in the school. I had understood that was to be expected. I blamed myself for it. I fell in a dark hole afterwards, because initially I could really relate to a lot what I had found, and now, I thought, I had lost it. After some time I realized I didn’t had to lose the ideas, so I picked up books again and another books and slowly life took over.

Whatever a “real teacher” is, would they ever, even for a moment, allow themselves to be worshipped by one of their followers/students?

Yet Robert Burton feeds on worship and adoration. In fact he demands it, and the Fellowship sheeple readily comply. The majority opinion (of course, unverified) is that Robert is leading everyone to “Paradise,” and all a person has to do is hang on, worship Robert to the end, and keep making payments or otherwise serving Robert.

Which leads to the next question:

What spiritual good can come from worshipping another person? Does Enlightenment (whatever that might mean to you) happen by hanging on to someone else’s coattails?

Isn’t it a solemn duty of any “real teacher” to make his/her students as independent as possible, as quickly as possible?

Once again, the fraud that is Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends is clearly seen, as is the supreme foolishness and blindness of its members.

Sofie – thanks for sharing insights into cult mentality and a personal reflection of your experience. If life is for learning – I believe it is – the FOF life-lesson depends upon the individual… you were a quick-study and fortunate not to have wasted more of your time with this particular delusional ‘system.’

A.P. / 63
In the second paragraph of your post you make an important point regarding cult mentality – a main component in the functioning of the scam requires that the FOF student believes in an implied notion of consciousness by proxy – that is, their own consciousness depends upon association with a presumed / so-called “conscious being.” This counterfeit form of consciousness a lie, a con that the student literally buys into…. for whatever reason(s).

The Fellowship of Friends rolls out yet another in its long lineage of recruiting websites. Despite all the “truthiness” such pages can muster, they will not conceal the Fellowship’s enduring purpose, the lifelong sustenance of the sexual predator at its core.

71. Tim
No doubt more comments on this later. For now, just to say that this new website is more “bait and switch.” You would think that Robert Earl Burton and the Fellowship of Friends actually study Gurdjieff’s “system,” aka “The Fourth Way.” But it simply and truthfully is not the case. For over 12 years, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky have been banished, not to be read privately, spoken about with other members, or quoted at meetings. They and their entire teaching have vanished, except in these “bait” websites and in the introductory meetings for “prospective students.” After that, nothing.

To anyone reading this who is thinking about contacting the Fellowship and/or joining that group, ask first to watch 10 minutes of a recent meeting lead by Robert Burton. Then compare what you see and hear to what you thought would be discussed and taught, i.e. what you are really looking for. If you want to study the Fourth Way, including the works of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, etc., you will need to go somewhere else.

Page 160/69. ton2u said: ‘In the second paragraph of your post you make. . .’ I would like to make it clear that the posting at 160/63 is in quotes because it is from elsewhere and stated by someone else. In the original posting there were the name’s initials of that person and a thank you to them, but, I suspect, that they asked the moderator to delete that portion so that they could not be identified as the source.

Yes, Robert Earl Burton and the Fellowship of Friends have been milking the spurious connection to the Fourth Way (Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Collin, et. al.) for almost its entire existence with one of the more egregious examples being the placement of promotional bookmarks in the books of such authors as a recruitment device. During the time of the appearance of the film Meetings with Remarkable Men (a film about Gurdjieff) there was legal action and a staying order placed against the Fellowship of Friends to prevent them from opportunistically benefiting thereby. Books from certain publisher were excluded from the ‘bookmarking octave’ due to that judicial action and may still be in force to this day. (Jomopinata might have more specific input on that legal subject.) Even amongst Fourth Way groups, the Fellowship of Friends is considered to be a bastard child.

71. Tim.
People are wondering why the Fellowship, in their promotional websites and in “prospective student” meetings, continues to connect itself with the “4th Way,” i.e. with the body of knowledge presented by Gurdjieff, when the connection no longer exists.

It’s already been well-established that there is no direct lineage from Gurdjieff to Burton since (1) Ouspensky did not follow Gurdjieff’s methods, (2) Alex Horn did not study and practice with anyone previously connected with Gurdjieff, and (3) Burton was with Horn for only a short time, just long enough to be tossed out for continually violating a task of not hitting on the other men in the group.

But more significantly, nothing that anyone would consider to be “4th Way” (or Gurdjieffian) knowledge or practice is evident anywhere in the Fellowship. This point has been discussed several times in previous posts.

So why the “false advertising,” the Ouspensky and Gurdjieff portraits on the bookmarks, the mention of G & O in the various websites, the Gurdjieff system still being presented at the prospective student meetings?

It’s because Fellowshipers are not able to speak about anything else. Their identity still resides in “4th Way talk,” even though it has become entirely superficial. No one would dare repeat the nonsense that is all that’s left of Burton’s “teaching,” nor would anyone join based on it. The secret mantra, the Sequence, the six little syllables that immediately produce “divine presence” and make one a “conscious being” headed for Paradise. The hidden secret to immortality, known by all artists, architects, and writers since the “prehistoric” days, miraculously detected and uncovered by Burton. Every instance of 6 of something, or 4 of something, or any circle, or any square, being “proof” of a “message” being left from the past. The regular visits to Apollo by “The Absolute.”

Indeed, who in their right mind would share Burton’s fantasies with anyone else? And who, having at least 20 functioning brain cells, would ever join the Fellowship based on these delusions? Which explains the “bait and switch:” The Fellowship elders get to appear super-knowledgeable about the “4th Way,” while leaving anyone who is suckered into joining to learn about the current “teaching” from Burton himself.

76. What is there to say about such insane dreck…? Is the Absolute an old guy with a long white beard? Doesn’t anyone there get a little awkward feeling watching Burton’s infantile behavior? I guess something has to top the ‘most ancient angel’ visit that he got.

“Pathology is confusing to the healthy. There is a reason why staying in close quarters with a person suffering from mental illness usually induces what is called a “shared psychosis.” Vulnerable or weakened individuals are more likely to succumb, and when their own mental health is compromised, they may develop an irresistible attraction to pathology, “

What if all the former members who had experienced Robert Earl Burtons demands to satisfy his sexual appetites chose to break their silence ~ as a few former members have, for the most part anonymously, on this very blog?

Just imagine the cacophony of “Me toos!”, the absolute avalanche of male members (and by their association with their sexually abused boyfriends and husbands, female members, too) if the many victims of the leader of the Fellowship of Friends were to speak out…

Descriptions of the Teacher’s aggressive sexual use of his followers would make the actions of the many men of power accused today pale in comparison. Here, a few excerpts of one former members written memory of sexual assault and harassment by Robert Earl Burton ~ in the members own words ~ from a May 5, 2007 post here.

“… this terrible angel who would rouse me and lead me secretly, stealthily into the dark of his gilded bed-chamber to service his need for the good of us all, in this school of “shut up and be present”, this silk-lined labyrinth of luxury complete with the matching salt and pepper shakers, where I puke out his semen in the imported porcelain toilet along with the fine wine and pepper steak from the teaching dinner earlier that night and wipe my face on the Egyptian cotton towel just before I’d retire until dawn cracks open another day and he slumbers peacefully until lunch dreaming of sugar plums because they remind him of testicles… while the rest of us toiled in the searing hot sun the next day still weary from our lunatic efforts the day and night before…”

“And can you even FATHOM the nauseating, soul imploding disgust I felt the night he did “rimming” on me, without my consent, and then brought his fecal coated lips to mine and kissed me? Try separating from that. The Darvons he used to hand out were not enough to quench the pain, for this pain is exquisite and it leaves no visible marks! Think of me the next time he kisses your forehead…once those lips had been planted firmly on my asshole and probably countless others from all corners of the planet. And that’s the ultimate of all ironies; he kisses your third eye with those lips, coating the seat of your very soul with fecal matter from the seat of his inner circle.”

“…to excrete myself one year later, quietly leaving in a gentleman-like fashion, not making a splash, barely a ripple, so as not to disturb anyone else who might be sleeping…to remain alive, and carry out my prophesized soul death sentence as a life-person-oh yeah, that’s right, there was no gun to my head…but thankfully his predictions don’t come true either, do they?”

When the enormity of Burton’s sexual demands were made known to me by one of his former partners, I found the way that he was described as trapping and grooming this faithful young follower who wanted nothing better than to please his teacher, but not this way, to be totally incompatible with the narrative I had till then swallowed, that Burton was an advanced exemplar of the benefits of consciousness in improving the lives of all around him. It was clearly cruel and in the jargon of the school “negative”. There arose in my mind a picture of Burton then, which has stayed with me if I recall him. I saw him as a bloated huge termite queen, controlling all the non queens in the hive by a subtle pheromonic enslavement, that left them helpless to do anything but obey.

I thought I would share a journal entry of mine from earlier this year:

It may be that, in the FF, we learned only 20% of Gurdjieff’s teaching and system. Maybe 50%, but probably not nearly that high. We did not go deep enough into human psychology. We lacked, never touched, a deep understanding of how the machine functions. Focused instead on what functions and “features” are, how to recognize them. But not the How and Why. Consequently, we ended up not really knowing ourselves. Not, anyway, of the depth that would reveal our “nothingness” with sufficient intensity. To successfully manipulate others, the leader has to make sure that the followers don’t learn too much about how easily people can be manipulated. That’s a secret the leader keeps to himself.

The behavior of RB in respect to taking advantage of the young, gullible and vulnerable is old news to most FOF members. They have a numerous buffers and justifications in place to allow them to feel that this is OK, such as:

– Our teacher does not operate according to normal/conventional morality
-nobody is ever forced (yes- I really was told that by a center director)
-it is a wonderful opportunity for these young people in many ways
(which seemed to be code for – these kids are poor, from eastern Europe/Russia and don’t have much going for them anyway, so this is OK)
-he is the teacher
-nobody is perfect
-they are all over 18
etc etc etc

The funny thing in some ways is that RBs behavior seems to be quite similar to many sexual predators – period of grooming/courting, moving in for the kill, and somehow setting up or inserting themselves into an organization which allows them opportunities to repeat the cycle without any repercussion, this means solidifying a position of power/trust/control over the victim, in this case he is their teacher. How many years now? 50?

I always found one of the more comical buffers was this whole thing about him being a teacher and that meant that he was a law onto himself and could do whatever the hell he liked. He was beyond feminine dominance. If I found something he was doing rather objectionable, it was because I was a rather repressed person hopelessly mired in Judeo-Christian morality.

(Aside : I remember quite some years ago we were organizing some events/dinner/fundraisers that the teacher was supposed to attend. Anyway he cancelled the event twice or something – like the day before we found out – that he had gone to Palm Springs or something, anyway the second time it was cancelled, an older student (I mean one of the 40+ year cadre) turned to me and said (it was one of those moments that an older student tells you what they really think as opposed to the official line), “Some people say that he is free from Feminine Dominance but I think he just does whatever he likes”)

Anyway back to that insidious buffer that when you reach a certain level of spritual development you are free from the trapping and restrictions of petty morality. One of the oldest and most widespread precepts for human behavior across millennia and civilizations for all of us- the great unwashed and the most lofty of teachers is The Golden Rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

“Golden Rule is good until the encounter with sado-masochistic persons. Does FoF foster such individuals?”

re: the golden rule, reciprocation, sadomasochism and the FOF

From your question I assume either you were never in the FOF, or the question is meant ‘tongue in cheek’, or you don’t understand the underlying psycho-emotional meaning and implications of sadmasochism in relationships… that is, maybe you don’t understand that giving / receiving physical pain (as in BDSM caricatures) – may be easily confused with the deeper psycho-emotional component of the sadomasochistic relationship… the overt inflicting / receiving of physical pain is not the qualifying factor in sadomasochistic relationships…. all that aside, you bring up a good point: burton and his playthings – who refer to themselves as “students” – are obviously engaged in a grotesque sadomasochistic dance – whether they care to acknowledge it or not… burton confuses the golden shower for the golden rule.

“…For some, taking on a role of compliance or helplessness offers a form of therapeutic escape; from the stresses of life, from responsibility, or from guilt. For others, being under the power of a strong, controlling presence may evoke the feelings of safety and protection associated with childhood. They likewise may derive satisfaction from earning the approval of that figure. A sadist, on the other hand, may enjoy the feeling of power and authority that comes from playing the dominant role, or receive pleasure vicariously through the suffering of the masochist. It is poorly understood, though, what ultimately connects these emotional experiences to sexual gratification, or how that connection initially forms….”

When I serendipitously met Fellowship of Friends members they connected me to a local center for the series of three Introductory Talks and I became a member.

I would describe the prevailing atmosphere that I personally felt when I was around the intriguing, mysterious center directors and students as a “strong, controlling presence.” *from the S&M Wikipedia article that ton2u quotes in his December 16 post.

For me, this sort of negative energy was bearable because I living in a new area without many friends – and it was served with a fair amount of attention and verbal positive reinforcement. Seekers, outsiders and needier individuals seems to be susceptible to this kind of behavior.

Accepting weird cult mindsets seems to be cultivated through a sort of push-pull negative and positive reinforcement.

The “Our teacher does not operate according to normal/conventional morality” mentioned in post 85 December 15 by Nevasayneva recalls the kind of desensitization of morality that Steve Bannon has orchestrated and Trump conducts: there are “alternate facts,” “all news is fake news,” the assertions then denials and constant lies by the President – nothing means anything anymore – so why be outraged?

The U.S. citizens are being groomed to accept the unacceptable, just as the Fellowship of Friends heterosexual men are groomed to accept Robert Burton’s sexual overtures and to do what is not wanted or natural to them – under the guise of “the lower cannot understand the higher” bullshit.

2018 is a good year to wake up and leave the Fellowship of Friends ~ if you haven’t already.

During my brief stay in the FOF in early 70’s there was a great deal of emphasis paid to the pursuit of higher states. Higher states were said to be the result and the goal of efforts to self-remember. The brief moments of “higher state experiences” for me did not endow me in any way with any lasting practical knowledge. During my stay in the FOF I did not meet anyone who claimed to be able to attain these states through the prescribed efforts i.e. Efforts to remember oneself, staying up all night, fasting, taking in higher impressions etc. Nor did anyone I met claim that by having the higher state experience they now had knowledge that they did not have before other than the knowledge that one could have a higher state experience. The party line at the time was that these “higher states” were proof that we were on “the way”, “the chosen ones”, “blessed with immortality”. To believe that you are special, important or have found favor with higher forces because of glimpses of higher states is magical thinking. I think some people may stay in the FOF because they have had experiences that to them are proof that teaching is real. Glimpses of higher states prove nothing.

I was a member of FoF’s London Centre for about three years. I left in 1985. GH was Centre Director at the time I joined, assisted by his partner at the time; Barbara. He soon departed though, and replaced by a guy called Walter, accompanied by a woman called Margaret. I did make a few good friends during my stay, but obviously lost contact upon my departure. I do often wonder what happened to those I met whose friendship I valued. From reading on here that there’s currently around 1500 students, roughly the same as during my stay, I guess most of those men & women I met have left too. I suppose the knowledge about the sexual predations of REB that started to come out around that time put pay to many, but I don’t truly know. I once signed a petition that appeared on the internet that asked that Burton be investigated for his actions, and I did recognise some names of co-signatories, but thereafter heard nothing more. Anyway, am glad to have found this site, and hope to contribute more in the future. Meanwhile; all the best to you & yours for 2018.

Sorry about the name slip….right Susan. I just finished
reading Patterson’s “Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff”. A
long well researched book in chronological form
with great pictures. Also, finished “The Road to
Jonestown”. I can remember the looks of doubt
on a lot of students faces at the time: ‘are we
that?’ A straight through read.
Rich

A man falls off a cliff. Somehow he catches hold of a vine that is growing out of the cliff’s wall. But the vine begins to pull loose and the man is in eminent danger of falling to his death. He looks up to the sky and beseeches God, “Oh God, Oh God, please save me. Oh God, Oh God, are you up there?” And a voice booms from above, “Yes, this is God, I am here, and I will save you, but only if you do as I say.” The man replies that he will do whatever he is asked to do. Then God tells him, ” I will save you, but you first must let go of the vine.” The man hesitates and then looks up to the sky again and calls out, “Is there anybody else up there?”

“The most difficult thing you can ask a man to give up is his suffering.”
– G.I.Gurdjieff

Do you think it’s fair to say that we are all, on some level, seekers of something…something we intuitively sense we lack, that which completes us, and that we find what we lack in our relationships with others?

News from the farm: Just when it seemed he had given up on the prophecy end of the “conscious school” racket, Robert Burton is back to making some more of his trademark predictions.

The first prediction is that Dorian M*tei will “crystallize as a conscious being” this year. As many will remember, Burton “predicted” this of himself back in 1976. It was, apparently, the only one of his dozen or more predictions to “come true,” and coincidentally the only one whose outcome he could control simply by stating that “it happened,” when there was no way for anyone else to verify what, if anything, actually occurred. Insiders feel that Robert is running out of energy to fundraise enough to meet his spending addiction (primarily for antiques), which by all accounts is totally out of control. Thus he needs a #2 conscious being to help bring in the dollars. Dorian owes his house, its furnishings, his gardens and orchards, even his bakery business, to Robert and the Fellowship, not to mention his very nice salary, likely second only to Robert’s. Thus, Dorian is all too happy to go along with Robert’s “conscious being” scheme. And I predict that this one will “come true” just like in 1976. And I further predict that many people, way too many, will believe it, just like many of us did 40+ years ago.

Fool me once, shame on you (Robert Burton); fool me twice, shame on me, and on you (current Fellowship members).

But wait, there’s more. It’s 2018 and time for another end-of-world/civilization prediction. This one is set to occur on Oct 21 (though some heard Oct 18) of this year. No specifics are being shared at this time; no doubt “Influence C” is withholding that information for their own reasons. All the student body is “invited” to vacation in Oregon House/Apollo for 1 month at that time. Meanwhile, all gatherings amongst centers are suspended for 1-1/2 years, so people can save their money to give to Robert in October.

It must be some weird psychological mechanism, but for some people (like most of the 1500 current members of the Fellowship of Friends), the more these predictions do not happen, the more easily the next one is believed. Really bizarre.

Speaking of going up to the farm to “be safe” from the end-of-the-world, I offer my memories of the last meeting Raymond Kennedy led at the old Los Gatos Center. First, he warned us not to rely on Rennaissance or to plan on fleeing there when things got bad. He said we were nuts to believe we could do this. Second, he said we should all read the book “How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years” by Howard J Ruff “as though it were “The Fourth Way.”” Thirdly, that all students should keep their own six months supply of food on hand. Lastly he announced that he was selling the teaching house and closing the center. Susan Willoughby and I attended that meeting from the Palo Alto Center, and, needless to say, we were flabbergasted. Does anyone else remember this? It must have been 1981, about a year before Raymond died on Bali. And, hi Drew. We, too, were housemates.

Just discovered the Fourth Way and was looking for a school and a FB Fourth Way group told me there was a group close to me, I contacted them and had my first meeting …. was taken aback when at the end of the meeting it was announced with great flair that the group was part of FOF. This was after I was sternly told about the “rules” and that they wanted $150/month or 10% of my earnings to “join”. I wasn’t too happy about it. Then I went to the internet and found the “Be” (Asaf Braverman), didn’t know at the time of HIS FOF association, so joined that instead. Then he sent me a note …how did you hear about the Fourth Way …. I wrote back and said I was looking to study, but wanted to avoid any FOF controlled groups … never hear back of course! Looks like I’ve totally dodged a bullet on this one. I got some very distinct flashes of danger and thank everybody for posting this information about FOF on the internet where it can be found and assimilated before any damage has been done. I’ll read Ouspensky on my own. Gurdjieff is a bit hard to follow. Cheers!

Insider (#78 ota),
I have to assume that the Older Students™ are protecting their psyches against the dissonance by hewing so faithfully to their version of the Fourth Way. I also assume there is an ‘underground’ quality to this belief system so as to not attract the ire of the thought police. That is, the official line supports the ‘bait and switch’, but also there is reinforcement amongst these Older Students™, meetings of like minds, to keep the fantasy that the Fellowship of Friends is still in some way a “True Fourth Way School”. Maybe their narrative is that it has ‘gone underground’ again, as the mythology claims such ‘schools’ must do for long periods of time?

This ties in with your recent references to Alex Horn, which remind me of the important place he has in the lineage of ‘conscious’ beings according to the mythology of both Burton’s Fellowship of Friends and Asaf Braverman’s BePeriod Fourth Way ‘school’. This was dealt with thoroughly in the blog previously, for example on page 131: goo.gl/QeWbGX
As noted there and elsewhere, both Burton and Braverman use this appeal to tradition and authority in a desperate attempt to bolster their own importance, relevance and bona fides. I thought readers might be interested in an example of confirmation bias, its relation to groupthink and how one facet of the official FoF version of history was invented using the manifold benefits of hindsight. IMO, this is not revisionism per se, but an extension of the fantasy into the past, in order to validate the legitimacy of the pretenders and support their claims to authority.

The following letter was sent to all members of the Fellowship of Friends in 2007:

==================================

Message from the Teacher

Dear Friends,
A student recently shared the following information with Robert and Robert wanted to share it with all of us:

Shortly after Alex Horn’s death a man who had known him at the University of Chicago in the early ‘fifties published a short obituary on the internet. It included some fond memories of their university years, but no information about Alex as a teacher or conscious being.

More recently another man, who had been at the University of Chicago at the same time, posted an anonymous response. This man had only a very external idea of the work, and no idea of the level Alex reached later in his life. He claimed to have been a close friend of David Daniels, who had been one of Alex’s closest associates at university. During the early ‘fifties both Alex and David became involved with the ‘Compass Players’, which was a theater group loosely affiliated with the university. The third man would often go to watch their rehearsals and performances.

He wrote that, at a certain point, a number of the Compass Players … “took an ‘esoteric’ trip to Mexico, on account of Horn’s interest in Ouspensky biographer Rodney Collin, who had settled there.”

Clearly the writer had only the vaguest idea of who Rodney Collin was, or what the group might have been doing on their visit, and this very fact gives the ring of truth to what he wrote. I deduced the date of the Compass Player’s trip to have been 1953 – three years before Rodney Collin’s death. Alex would have been 24 and Rodney 44 at that time. Additionally, Alex almost surely knew Rodney Collin before having invited his friends on the trip.

There was nothing else of interest in the posting and no further mention of Rodney Collin. But what once appeared to be a strong possibility now seems to be a fact. So, from this point of view, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Collin, and Horn each had one fully conscious student, and the ‘Fourth Way’ lineage to ourselves is direct.

Written by Hugh James

==================================

Magical thinking at its best. All roads, however convoluted, lead to the desired conclusion. The author, Hugh James, is a long-time member, a revered honcho in the organization, one of the mainstays of the Fellowship “research octave”—and somehow even collected a PhD along the way…

#103 is an experiment that helped determine why I have been unable to post comments for a couple of months. Just to be clear, agilbert1 is the same writer as Ames Gilbert (real name!), a long–time regular contributor to this site, and I hope to be able to resume posts under my original name again.

StrangerInAStrangeLand,
Yup, you dodged a couple of bullets (Burtons church a.k.a. the Fellowship of Friends, and Asaf Braverman’s Beperiod setup). Luckily, you seem to have more ‘common sense’ than most of those of us who joined the Fellowship of Friends for more than a couple of months. But there are lots more bullets to dodge if you pursue you interest in the “Fourth Way”. Over at http://robertearlburton.blogspot.com/, Tim Campion has recently posted an updated list of FoF front groups; these are just those that he can find. And the FoF continually spreads its tentacles, organizing new Meetups, Facebook pages, and no doubt many other avenues on a continual basis, trying to attract fresh fodder for Burton to exploit.

That’s just the FoF. There are also many offshoots of the FoF, that is, new groups organized by former members. Beperiod is just the best organized (that I know of). Some of them may be relatively benign, some are clearly criminal (and have ended in prison sentences for the organizers). And then of course there are the many, many groups that never had anything to do with the FoF…

So, continue to watch out and keep on asking questions and more questions, and continue listening to your feelings. And, thank you very much for reporting back. I’m going to be optimistic and hope that you represent a thousand others who also heeded the warnings. Your feedback is very encouraging.

100. Stranger…
You may have read in these pages that the Fellowship of Friends is NOT a “4th Way School.” They use Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, et al to bait people into joining. They have recently been forced to lower the membership fees for new people to $75/mo for the first year. That’s because, upon joining, they pull the big switch, and a person won’t see or hear anything related to the “4th Way.” The entire membership has been under a “task” for the past 12 years NOT to read or speak about Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, or the “4th Way.”

The following is a real example of Robert Burton’s so-called “4th Way Teaching.” It’s from meeting Burton led a little over a year ago. For those who can bear it, here goes:

“There is no greater honor anyone could have than for the Absolute to appear and put His conscious support behind us. The fact that He
appeared and visited us will help us through a lot of difficulty. One
can make efforts for the Absolute. In fact, this is why we are
present—because of the school above us that has been assigned to
help us escape. If the angels do not do this, they cannot pass to the
next level themselves. This is why we are all present—all of the
angels do their work. William Blake was a very sweet essence poet,
but when it comes to making sure that we are present, he is quite
firm. He will do anything he can to ensure that we are present.
More thoughts on this subject will come at tonight’s dinner. On the
first visit, Apollo did his business near a tree that had died in the
drought. It was an impression to see Apollo doing it near a dead
tree. We have since planted a new tree in its place. The tree had
died during the winter drought. A few trees died because our
formatory mind did not have an ‘I’ to water them in the winter. Then
we realized we would have to water them in the winter for awhile.
Incidentally, this may happen again. It may be a very dry winter.
There is no talk of El Niño or a favorable rainy season this year.
Near to where the event occurred were these roses, Altissimo,
which means “the highest,” and Pearly Gates. Of course, do not
give your sequential pearls to the lower self. Make sure that you
reach long BE, which becomes the pearl of great price. This is what
“pearly gates” means at our level. We do not know what the
architecture in Paradise is like. Goethe said that architecture is
frozen music. Music is molecular. The angels may be able to see
notes. Their astral body has a tremendous capacity for speed. I was
upgraded to the Concord once by British Airways. I had coach
seats, but Influence C put my secretary and me into the Concord,
where you watch yourself digitally break the sound barrier.
Sometimes it takes less time to travel from New York to London
than from Heathrow Airport to downtown London. I remember once
I had breakfast at the Westbury in London and dinner at the
Westbury in New York. It used to take Benjamin Franklin six
weeks to return from Paris to New York and one month to arrive
there. Interestingly, the Westbury in New York was converted into
apartments meaning that the west will be buried. “West bury” may
refer to a possible cataclysmic event. But is not Mirna’s story sweet,
with a happy ending? I think that she completed her seventh life.
You can see what someone can accomplish in her seventh life. Most
of us are in our eighth or ninth life. That is what it takes to survive
what Influence C are planning. Since the Absolute appeared to us
twice, I am very confident we that will move through whatever it is
that they have in store for us. This state will use whatever comes to
strengthen itself.”

So now you know what you have been missing, and what you intelligently avoided. Good luck with everything.

I quote from the chapter “People of the Bookmark” in
the book ‘Taking with the Left Hand’ by William Patterson,
closing the chapter:

Whatever happens to the Fellowship’s founder, the professed
“master of the emotional,” whether he is retired, given a ceremonial post or canonized as a martyr, the day will come when the
organization will have a new leader, no doubt squeaky-clean, who will
command the “Ark of the Future.” His will be palatial and handsome
headquarters full of valuable art objects, a budget in the millions,
and a worldwide network of ardent tithing believers. The mistakes and errors pointed out here will be excised and the past reshaped.. Thus a new generation of the idealistic and naive will have the challenge of
discriminating between the esoteric and the pseudo-esoteric. But this is needful. The Fellowship of Friends has its place, its part to play,
for as Gurdjieff said:

The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people
people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and
schools; and if there were not these pseudo-esoteric schools
the vast majority of humanity would have no possibility whatever
of hearing and learning of the existence of anything greater than
life because the truth in its pure form would be inaccessible
for them

Hi VInnie,
good guess, yes, it’s Dorian Mattei. As you may recall, he had been previously anointed as a ‘future conscious being’, but apparently Burton announced at a meeting on Jan 1st that Dorian would ‘crystallize’ this year. Hooray! Based on an omen that somehow produced the result, ‘Dorian18’, in his addled brain.

But wait, there is more. Burton is predicting another Big Event™, coming in October. What a surprise! Having only recently ridden Apollo of the various ostriches, peacocks, horses, etc, he is now restocking on those animals so essential to the Future Civilization™, and also breeding more camels. In other preparations, he has banned all large events around the world and requested that all members be at Apollo during October. I’m sure he will be doing some more serious fund-raising then, you betcha. And what the heck if this turns out to be the umpteenth opportunity for ‘C–Influence’ to humiliate him, his bank account will be overflowing and he can purchase all the boys and gaudy trinkets he could lust for—for a few more months.

In other news, Burton is getting tough on those who don’t come to $$meetings and $$events with him—to the extent of actually expelling them from the fold. Linda (Whatever) and Kevin Brown and the rest are probably fully occupied taking names and kicking ass.

I’m sure ‘I in the Sky’ and the rest of the Older Students™ are busy justifying and explaining what all this really means to the rest of the laity…

Thank you for sharing the above, which I found to be another shocking illustration of what the FoF has apparently become.

To use the word gobbledygook as a description of Robert’s Sermon, is an understatement, and to think that members are expected to pay good money to receive such wisdom is almost beyond my comprehension. I think I’d prefer to forego the dinner afterwards, and opt instead, for a lie down in a quiet, darkened room.

I would like to add, that its interesting to learn that the Absolute is a He, and freely gave up his valuable time from managing Black Holes, Galaxy creation, and generally expanding the Universe across several billion light years, to drop in for a visit. Not quite sure what Robert meant by the big A doing his business, but in the UK, that term is often used as a euphemism for the deposition of faecal matter.

To paraphrase a line from the Monty Python film; Life of Brian, He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy !

to remove possible misunderstanding, The Apollo “doing his business” referred to in the extract in post 106 most likely refers to one of the King Charles Cavalier Spaniels who live or used to live at the Galleria. One of the dogs was named Apollo. So most likely in the extract in #106 it is the dog that is being referred to rather than a physical incarnation of the Greek God….but maybe I am wrong. 🙂

You are correct about Apollo being a dog. And for at least the second time, the presence of animal poop was a significant omen for the “school.” In this case (June 2014), Apollo pooping as Robert was walking in the garden meant that the Absolute was making his first visitation to the other Apollo. For those who may have misplaced their program, the first poop omen was the 6 rino poops in a cave painting that proved that the “prehistoric school” (sic) had the “sequence.”

Here’s a fact about this June 2014 “visitation” that virtually the entire FF membership has missed: At the time, there was absolutely no mention of it. That (perfectly staged, hankie-under-the knee) photo of Robert kissing the ground supposedly was from this walk in the garden that particular evening. Yet there was no mention or sharing of this photo until 800 days later. Then, in Sept 2016, when “The Absolute” supposedly visited for the second time, the story and photo from the first “visit” was finally announced. Such a momentous event, and Robert waits 800 days to tell the flock?? Come on, man.

Is there any remaining doubt of the deep hypnosis and mind-control that Robert Burton has put his followers under? And how willingly and peacefully they slumber, all the while thinking they are “conscious beings” headed for “Paradise?”

It matters little what is said, or done, by Robert Burton, there is an atmosphere – a mesmerising calm ‘in the air’, that pervades the FOF, that trickles down through power-commanders/henchmen and to the abject $$$-paying followers (there is no possibility of study here).